Mark Hughes has an international reputation for his work on single-cell analysis and pre-implantation diagnosis. Through this work, Hughes screens externally fertilized human eggs for a specific hereditary disease before implanting them in the mother's womb. This procedure allows parents at high genetic risk to eliminate the possibility of giving birth to a child with that disease.

A native of Minnesota, Hughes began his higher education at St. Johns University. After earning a Bachelor of Science in chemistry and biology, he enrolled at the University of Arizona College of Medicine where he earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1977. He then attended Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, where he became a postdoctoral fellow in cell biology and followed it with training for a medical degree, which he received in 1984. Hughes completed a two-year residency in internal medicine at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina in 1986, and...